SYRIA: Visit to the Tishreen Military Hospital in Damascus

On the 19th of December 2016 I was granted permission to visit the Tishreen Military Hospital in Damascus. I was told by the hospital director, that at the turn of the 20th century it had been a civilian hospital. It now treats both military and civilians. The hospital has been the target of numerous US coalition funded extremist attacks, led by Jaish al Islam and Nusra Front terrorists since the dirty war on Syria was ignited in 2011.

During the conflict, being fomented inside Syria by a collection of US allied, interventionist nations, with Israel as primary beneficiary, the majority of soldiers treated in this hospital have come in from Southern Syria, Homs, Daraa and most recently from Ghouta, especially from the battles for Mayda’ani.

Tishreen had also received soldiers who had been targeted by the US coalition airstrikes in Deir Ezzor on September 17th 2016, when US, UK, Danish and Australian airforces had bombed and strafed SAA soliders defending the beleaguered city against ISIS attacks. The attack went on for an estimated one hour and permitted ISIS to advance and take strategic Syrian army positions. John Kerry issued a statement in January during which he announced, in an offhand way, that the US coalition had “accidentally bombed 70 Syrian troops”.

The soldiers I met, had recently been wounded in fighting in East Ghouta, particularly in the hotly contested Mayda’ani. In this area, Nusra Front and Jaish al Islam are the dominant NATO state proxy extremist forces. The names of these soldiers cannot be published for security reasons. Most of them had been injured in rocket and missile attacks which had lacerated limbs and shattered bone. One young soldier who barely spoke had lost both legs when he had trodden on a terrorist laid mine, his father stood by his bed and told us his son just wanted to be back in the battle for his country.

One of the soldiers had been hit in the throat by shrapnel after a Nusra Front rocket attack on their position and was still unable to speak. According to doctors the prognosis was good and they hoped he would regain his voice in a few months. Another soldier’s leg had been completely crushed by an incoming “grad missile” that had targeted the vehicle ferrying him and his comrades back to their base. They all expressed a desire and readiness to get back to the front and to continue the fight to defend their country against the infiltration of extremist and terrorist, NATO state proxy forces.

The following are photos that I was able to take of the soldiers I spoke with, I think they convey more than words:

All of these young men were under the age of 25, the youngest being 20 years old. They came from all over Syria, from Damascus, Ghouta, Palmyra/Tadmor, Aleppo. They came from areas that had been declared anti Syrian government by the groups of extremists yet they had united to fight against these Nusra Front-led mercenaries who were killing the Syrian people. Killing Syria in order to impose their vision for Syria that is suppressing the voices of the majority of the Syrian people who wish to maintain their secular state and refuse to be coerced into accepting any form of externally enforced Islamist state. These soldiers defied all claims of sectarian division in Syria by fighting together against the violation of the sovereignty of their homeland.

In Tishreen MH, we also spoke with a lady who had been paralysed, from the waist down, in the Tartous & Jableh suicide bomb attacks of May 2016, that claimed the lives of over 80 Syrian civilians. She had been standing in a queue when the blast occurred and injured her so dreadfully. She was transferred from the hospital in Tartous to Damascus where she has been ever since, undergoing treatment.

“Units of the Syrian army secured the exit of scores of families from Douma area in Eastern Ghouta who have fled a draconian rule of terrorist organizations in the area.

Nearly 1,000 people, mostly women and children, were evacuated on Saturday from Hawsh al-Fara, Hawsh Nasra and Maida’ani in Douma, according to a police source.

The families were relocated to a temporary housing center in Qudsayya suburb in Damascus western countryside.

This comes two days after the army managed to get 160 citizens out of Douma farms who turned to the army for help, which is part of a sequel of rescue operations the army had carried out to secure besieged families in areas controlled by terrorist organizations.

The fresh arrivals bring to 3000 the number of citizens now residing in the temporary housing center in Qudsayya as consecutive waves of families are continually arriving with the help of the Syrian army.

Takfiri terrorist organizations, among them Jaish al-Islam “Islam Army” and al-Ummah Army which have foreign mercenaries in their ranks are active in Douma area in Eastern Ghouta.”